Pears + Pectin - Puzzle Solved

It was puzzling.  My second batch of jam reached 220 degrees.  I believed the evidence of the sugar thermometer and poured it into the warmed jars.  But it seemed runny.  Deep down I should have known.  Later I found that my husband had put the jam in the fridge to help it along.  This was not a good sign.  The jam should have set rapidly as it cooled in the jars; instead after a day or so it was still a pleasant pear and ginger sauce. 

I nearly left it there.  I gave a jar to a friend.  I left the others in the fridge.  I talked to my sister and observed that we all put some things down to experience.  She told me to buy pectin and boil it up again.  Pears are lower in pectin than blackberries.  I should have remembered this.  That is why jam sugar (not the sugar I used last time) contains the phrase 'with added pectin'.

I added a sachet of pectin and brought the jam to setting point.  It set.  My sister will be amused when she reads this.

Spring Onions

The day before the Equinox in March we took our 'apprentice' down to the plot and sowed spring onions.  Spring onions are a catch crop which can go in at intervals throughout the growing season and usually take about eight weeks.  The seed and the source were good and recommended.  Nothing came up.  Not the best outcome when gardening with a novice.

This September, before the Autumn Equinox I sowed onions from seed for the first time.

Senshyu (the spelling varies) are a Japanese overwintering onion to be harvested in July.   The instructions on the packet were clear and in capital letters to be sown END OF AUG EARLY SEP IN SOUTHERN AREAS.  NOT SUITABLE FOR SOWING AT ANY OTHER TIME.

The last time I went down to the plot, the thin, folded first leaves of the Senshyu were beginning to show. 

How various is our allotment experience.   Some crops, supposedly 'easy' fail to germinate.  Others reputedly 'difficult' (most gardeners prefer onions sets nowadays) start to grow at as summer turns to autumn.  It's a long time and a lot of work until July 2014, but I hope to harvest my Senshyu in due season.

Green Tomatoes

* Our tomatoes are green because we grew them ourselves.

* Our tomatoes are green because, package-free, they travelled a very short distance from the plot to our pad.

*Our tomatoes are green because blight blew in the wind across the allotments and struck before the fruit had chance to ripen.

*Our chutney is made from green tomatoes, windfall apples and other delicious ingredients (which we cannot guarantee to be green) and was ladled into our recycled jam jars yesterday.  The recipe comes from a book we sourced from the charity shop.

*Our electric cooker isn't green, it's grey (please don't email me!) but we are doing our best.

Comfort me with apples ....

Our venerable customer, G, has recently sent my husband home with a haul of red Discovery apples.  It took me back to my first year at college, forty years ago.  Ours had extensive grounds and an orchard.  You could buy a big bag of apples from the groundsman's shed.  I used to steadily munch my way through these, cores and all while writing essays.  My family still joke about this habit.

Some time has elapsed from the early seventies to our present era, but some things remain the same.  I still love apples, although I cannot devour them as I once did.  But, taken in moderation, they sustain me as I garden while not raising my glucose levels beyond the recommended parameters.

I am still writing, although I marvel now at how I achieved any form of literary criticism. 

Many people will be returning to Cambridge for the alumnae weekend.  My thoughts are with them.  I remember those who supervised my work with gratitude.

If you are interested in attributions you will find my heading in the Song of Solomon, Chapter Two.  Read the original before the you consult the critics was the rule.  I believe that still holds good.

A Vintage Year

It has been a good season, to date, for our vines.  The outside grapes (for eating and juicing) are turning from green to pink to red; the inside (green grapes) are slower to ripen and provide a lesson in patience.

Most days I go to our larger greenhouse and sample a grape.  It looks soft, sweet and juicy but is bitter.  If I were a real connoiseur, a wine buff for example, I would be able to describe the precise gradations of bitterness, how each sour bunch is slowly sweetening day by day until perfect ripeness is attained.  As it is, I pick a grape and grimace.

There is one visual indicator, however, which I had forgotten.  I should not be sampling the grapes but examining the stem.  When they are ready it will turn from green to a more brittle brown.  As soon as this happens it is time to harvest.

Stepping over the apple trees

I am full of admiration for gardeners who are able to grow apples on by the cordon or espalier method.  In my defence I would say:

- I prefer my trees to grow according to their natural bush shapes
- I have difficulty visualising diagrams where 'x marks the spot'

However what I was unwilling to attempt the ants have done for me.  It is unfortunate that we failed to spot the anthill under our Bramley much earlier.  Because of their nest-building proclivities our tree is now leaning, lopsided, close to the angle at which professionals train their espaliers. Our apples are almost touching the ground.

I shall prune my trees, in December or January as recommended.  I shall try my best to be decisive and take out as many branches as necessary.

Bramleys are not a suitable variety for the espalier treatment.  However, in the spirit of live and let live I shall leave the ants alone and enjoy our oblique-angled tree.